In The Gutter

Perhaps they all read my whinge about motorists the other day but today three cars move over to the right and out of my way as I move up through the traffic, which is great. There’s always one though, who has to drive right up to the curb so that cyclists cannot get past. They’re probably the first to complain when cyclists hop onto the pavement to pass them. This morning though, no complaints.

Ah, apart from the bin men in Spondon. They must have a new guy on board because someone had neatly lined all the bins up for emptying... in the gutter. Great. Another obstacle to quick progress, not that I'd have been particularly thrilled had I been in the car either.

L’s at the pool, being outnumbered by the lifeguards. She’s thrilled. Pool to herself and no shower queues. Problem is if she’s the only there, they’ll soon axe the session due to lack of popularity. This is all since they changed the pool times, stating this was what people wanted! Err, obviously not.

Cycling is very good for reminding you of your own mortality but today we also get two reminders of the mortality of man’s best friend. We hear the devastating news that a friend’s dog has died this morning after a long illness, a collie not much older than Doggo.

Then L sends me a news snippet that at least three dogs have died and five others been taken ill after being out walking in woods in Nottinghamshire. Vets suspect poisoning but say the source could be natural. So we’ll be keeping away from the effected woods of Haywood Oaks, Blidworth Woods, Sherwood Pines and Thieves Wood. No orienteering for Doggo this winter then, all those woods are popular orienteering venues.

On the way to the pool, I pass a cyclist who is looking particularly unstable as he careers downhill along the bus lane. As I give him a wide berth I notice the reason for his instability. He’s riding a unicycle! Downhill! In a bus lane! One waft from the Red Arrow bus and he’d be in someone’s garden. Brave chap... if that’s the right word.

We have a beer later; an overworked, knackered and stressed L looks like she needs it. We are also sad about our friend’s dog, so we drink to his memory and the boys get extra hugs tonight. RIP mate.

Cycling Through Glue

Bloody windy this morning. It was like cycling through glue.

No incidents today, other than a couple of lads fighting in the middle of the road. Mock fighting that is. I think. Probably one of those mock muggings that some charity ‘group’ were on about staging around the UK to test the public's willingness to come to the aid of victims and report crimes. Their intention being to challenge the ‘walk-on-by’ culture to street crime. I ride-on-by.

Exhibit A.



Apparently this creature was skulking in our bedroom the other day and tapped L on the shoulder. Daughter had to rescue her, after she’d photographed it of course. I was out so couldn’t do the manly thing and come to the aide of my damsel in distress. Although it probably wasn’t as big as it looks.

Squash tonight. I get annihilated. So do Derby. We had it coming. It’s going to be a long season. Thankfully I don’t get to listen to most of it because Radio Derby have now stopped covering the games on medium wave, devoting this frequency now to Burton Albion, and the FM reception isn’t very good where we live. Good job really.

Shouldn’t Be Allowed

I have an exercise free day, not so L, who manages to swing her leg over an exercise bike at the gym, despite yesterday’s race and several pints of Screech Owl. I'm the car and regretting it. Judging by the traffic this morning everybody must finally be back at work this week.

She keeps telling me of a cyclist, who turns up at the gym in full cycling kit including cleated shoes, does 20 minutes of weights, then clatters off back to his bike. She’s curious to know what he's training for. I bet I know. It’s probably ‘Survival Of The Fittest’ and I bet he knows something I don’t about the course.



In the news is a university vice-chancellor who has got himself into trouble for describing his female students as a ‘perk of the job’. He’s deluded and has obvious never had to teach Daughter and her mates... only kidding girls.

Oh I see, he’s not on about the challenges of teaching this high-spirited subsection of our species but is on about their attractiveness and how some unscrupulous female students attempt to flaunt it to their advantage.

Tut tut. Shouldn’t be allowed. As a male student you want your fellow students to flutter their eyelashes at you not at the lecturers. Further, rather than being surrounded by attractive young girls at the end of each lesson, all hoping for an upgrade of a mark or two, the lecturers should be explaining to you why your answer to question seven is totally wrong. Not that I’m bitter Mr XXXXXX, A Level Chemistry, Wilmorton College, Derby, 1985.

The Womens' officer for the NUS has condemned his comments, so it clearly didn’t work for her.

Whilst I’m training the boys, L continues to be active by going running in Derby and then follows this by agreeing to participate in a darts tournament organised by her running club. You know what they say, beware the 11 year old who has obviously been practising. It takes her two glasses of Rose to get over it.

Feelings Can Be Deceptive

This morning it’s the Crossdale 10k and I’m feeling fit for it. Feelings can be deceptive. I did a storming time last year, considering it’s an off-road race and I have no idea how I’m going to repeat that performance.

This is the 10th running of the event and L digs out her t-shirt of that very first event in 2000, which is the only time she’s entered. I see a couple of people opting to race in that first t-shirt. Last year was the only time I’ve ran it but this year we’re both in the field. The event is a considerable fund-raiser for the primary school that hosts it and also raises money for the charity ‘Friends of Kadzinuni’ who promote education and health care in Kenya.

The prospects for my ankles don’t look good when even the school sports field, where the finish is, is covered in pot holes so big it looks as they’ve borrowed MD to do some excavation work for them.

The course is fairly flat, other than the fact that you start at the top of a big hill and therefore have to run down it, which is pretty treacherous. Then of course once this is over you can spend the next 9k worrying about how you’re going to get back up that hill to the finish line on its summit. Certainly a finish for the masochistic.



It’s a scenic course, pretty countryside and apparently we run past a graveyard, according to L, but I’ve never noticed. Too focussed me.

My run goes well, although all the way through I’m conscious that I’m well down on last year’s pace. Due to all the dry weather we’ve had the ground was hard and rutted this year, so perhaps the softer conditions last year suited me better. I can’t see how I could have ran much faster without breaking an ankle this year.

Towards the end I try to up my pace and go past a few people who slow down for the last drinks station. I don’t ever take a drink on such a short run but the chap in front of me thoughtfully shares his with me as he slops it around trying to find his mouth and in the process pours half of it down my sleeve. Then after failing to find his mouth, he gives up and pours the rest of it over his head and soaks me in the process. Very refreshing.

Then it’s back up the hill to the finish. There’s no one immediately behind me so I can actually take it easy, unlike last year where I ended up in a three way sprint up it. Not good for the calves.

At the finish, I’m two minutes slower than last year. Oh well. Still a good overall placing though.

In the evening we manage to stagger into town, have a snack at Broadway and then oil our aching legs with a good dose of Screech Owl, a 5.5% IPA, at the Kean’s Head. Castle Rock the brewer, from Nottingham, are generously accepting the ‘50p off at Wetherspoons’ vouchers that we have, because Wetherspoons don’t tend to sell their beers. This is all very bad news for our alcohol units.

Relief All Round

It looked like the sort of game, much like the last four, where we’ve done ok but ultimately created little and of course failed to hit the back of the net. Then helped by a sending off, a just one, Derby somehow furnish a 1-0 with a goal in the 85th minute. Relief all round.

The first other score I check it that of a Sol-less Notts County, who win too. Of course its been well documented that their multi-million pound signing walked out on them last week, one month into a five-year contract, after falling face down in reality during his début at glamorous Morecambe where County lost 2-1. It’s tough at the bottom Sol.

We stay in tonight, to fuel up on pasta and chocolate pudding before tomorrow’s Crossdale 10k.

Instead we watch Cold Comfort Farm on DVD. Can you tell that Daughter is out? Cold Comfort Farm was made in 1995 based on a book by Stella Gibbon from 1932. The book itself was a parody of the stories written by the likes of Ms Austen, Mr Dickens, Mr Hardy etc. The film adds to this by also being a bit of a send up of the period TV dramas.

Recently orphaned Flora Poste (Kate Beckinsale), always referred to as Robert Poste's daughter, has an allowance of only £156 per year and no interest in work, but rather than become a student she moves in with some distant relatives, the Starkadders, whom she has never met. They reside at Cold Comfort Farm in a place called Howling, somewhere in Sussex, a place where the village pub is called ‘The Condemned Man’.



The farm is badly run, falling apart and home to a right bunch of characters (played by a star studded cast), who are all, without exception, totally backwards in their thinking, even for the 1930’s. The farm is also supposedly cursed and the family’s belief in the curse is self-fulfilling and reflected in their outlook on life. Even the family’s cows are called Aimless, Feckless, Graceless, and Pointless.

The whole little empire is presided over by Aunt Ada Doom, who is supposedly quite mad after having seeing ‘something nasty in the woodshed’. Yes, it’s a comedy.

Our heroine, Flora sets about trying to change everything for the better, simply by being positive and modern in her outlook. She starts by modernising their dish washing facilities, by attempting to replace the much loved 'twig' with a hand mop and then takes it from there. Sorting out their love lives and job prospects along the way.



Very good and I imagine it is one of those films where you pick up more from it each time you watch.

Assuaging The Guilt

I cycle in, without any mishaps or close shaves for once and completely forget to ‘check in’ with L and she doesn’t email to remind me to do so. Then she texts because her emails haven’t been replied to because all the recent adverse cycling publicity is making her paranoid. It seems that either our email is down or having a bit of a ‘post office’ moment, with things being delayed in the post.

I text her back, telling her that I am fine. Of course, I could be bluffing and actually texting her from casualty but then suddenly the emails start arriving, having taken an hour to travel from Nottingham to Derby, so perhaps they went by car.

L again tells me that she’s fancies a Friday night in town but she expects her guilt to get the better of her and therefore we will again end up down the local, what with Friday being the dogs' pub night. So I try to assuage her guilt by taking them out for a park session first. Now neither dog looks capable of walking as far as the pub.

We head into town.

Our first port of call is the newly re-opened Scruffys. It boasts new owners, new décor and a new menu. Thankfully the trendy bar pink look has been dispensed with, which I’m sure helped alienate their core customers and contributed to them going under. They've gone for more of a whitewashed look, it's not really scruffy enough but it's better. If anything it looks a bit unfinished, which I suppose could = scruffy, particularly if they give us a pot of paint to sit on.

We are intercepted almost as soon as we get in there. Apparently only a week after reopening they’ve had their alcohol licence suspended, due to the wrong type of paperwork being submitted or something. They should have it all sorted by tomorrow but for now, they can’t sell us anything.

Oh well, we shall have to return at a later date. Good to see they have a couple of real ales on the bar, albeit not very exciting ones.

So it’s the Hand and Heart and The Ropewalk as usual. The Ropewalk being where I’m sure most of Scruffys customers decanted to and now probably it's chief rival.

It’s Still There

I drive into work today and mid-afternoon get a call from Daughter, who’s just got home from college. Seems I’ve left my bike outside the front gate... all night. I told you I had a traumatic day. The amazing thing is, it’s still there! Our neighbourhood can’t be as bad as I thought.

L’s having one today, a traumatic day that is, although not for cycling reasons. She asks if we can have beer in the bedsit tonight. She can have anything she wants. Beer, wine, brandy, whisky, even the two-year-old home-made damson gin that we’ve been avoiding, I mean leaving to mature... all in one glass if she wants. I might even get the chocolate out.

That is after dog training, which as we end up training in near darkness, we decide will be the last one of the year. I'm sure MD thinks because it’s so dark I can’t see him misbehaving but I can.

National Bad Driving Week

I have a bit of bad day on the bike today but, despite checking on the internet, I can't find anything about it being National Bad Driving Week. I do however stumble across yet another incoherent anti-cycling rant, which was printed in yesterday’s Daily Mail.

Presumably the journalist, Robert Hardman, must have had a bad day himself (in his car of course) to cause him to write such drivel. His day on the roads couldn’t possibly have been as bad as mine. Perhaps he was annoyed because all the ‘Lycra louts’, as he calls them, got to work before him.

Nice title by the way Robert, 'Lycra louts drive me crazy'. Inaccurate though because very few commuter cyclists wear Lycra. Lycra is only really worn by the more serious and more experienced cyclists. Most of which avoid cycling in cities completely and those that do are the ones most likely to obey all the rules of the road. His article even included two photos of cyclists NOT wearing Lycra.

Despite him going onto criticise cyclists jumping lights and riding on the pavement, both those cyclists were pictured on the road; one of them was even stationary and waiting correctly at a red light.

I do partly agree with him. Cycling on the pavement should be banned full stop but it’s the governments fault for actively encouraged it with its shared use policy, and now they're reaping what they've sown. Personally I think being on the pavement is more dangerous to a cyclist than being on the road and certainly slower. Occasionally a pedestrian gets killed by a cyclist but statistics show that for every one killed by a cyclist 150 will be killed by a car that has mounted the pavement.

I also agree that some days you see a mad cyclist go through a red light but every day I see at least half a dozen motorists do the same thing.

In short, there are far too many cyclists behaving like motorists but this is probably because most of them are. Bad ones that is. The ones that haven’t got their licences yet will presumably be just as bad when they do. These cyclists will be the ones that once they get home and into their cars they’ll be out jumping red lights, talking on their mobile phones and other bad habits, such as not indicating left at roundabouts. I reckon 50% of motorists don’t indicate left at roundabouts, which is very hazardous for a cyclist when you’re moving up the inside of them (legally) in a queue.

I think the original point of his article, before he lost track of it, came from his misinterpretation of the suggestion by the chairman of Cycling England that the ‘legal onus be placed on motorists when there are accidents’.

Under current law, if a bike and a car are involved in an accident it is the cyclist who has to prove the car is at fault. As the majority of these sorts of accidents are caused by cars this doesn’t really make sense. The proposal would mean that the car is presumed to be at fault unless there is evidence to the contrary. A cyclist running a red light would of course be a case where the cyclist would be at fault. This is how the law works in most European countries and seems to work to everyone’s satisfaction. It does not imply that the car driver would always be deemed the guilty party, which is what Mr Hardman thought.

He even rang the Department for Transport to check with them. They confirmed that Hardman's interpretation was 'absolute nonsense' but still he thought it worth writing the article.

He even finishes his article by saying that ‘Cycling is, unquestionably, a good thing. It is good for the body and every traveller on a bike is one less exhaust fume for the pedestrian.’ Then ends up praising our Olympic cycling achievements and the new velodrome that is being built for 2012. He’s one confused journalist.

Glad I got that off my chest. Still hasn’t help me forget my day though.

First I came across a woman edging out of one of the junctions. She had a fag in hand and her window down, through which she was blowing smoke. I was so close to her that I could breathe it in. She obviously hadn't seen me though, she had that vacant look in her eyes, looking straight through me and she wasn't moving forwards either. So I started to go around her, at which point she manoeuvred the car forward, one finger on the wheel, although she also appearing to be holding it firm at the bottom with her stomach. I had to veer into the centre of the road to avoid her. I thanked her loudly through her open window but she didn't hear me of course.

This is all bread and butter stuff for a cyclist, almost an everyday happening, unlike the second incident which almost required a trip to A&E. A BMW almost wiped out my front wheel as it raced me, trying to beat me to the next junction, which was a left turn just ahead. I didn’t know I was in a race until he shot past me and cut across my path, clearly not realising I was travelling at 40kph on what is a pretty quick stretch of road. He tyre screeched around the corner turning left across my front wheel, I was going straight on. Grabbing the brakes hard, and thanking myself for recently putting new blocks on, I manage to scrub off enough speed to avoid parking my front wheel in his rear wheel arch. I got a rather elegant sideways slide on too but manage to keep the bike upright.

That was worrying stuff, less so was a run of the mill incident on the way to the swimming pool later. A chap drove straight across the road in front of me but then he swung his car around in the entrance to a side street he'd just entered and came back for a second go at me. Suddenly, and at long last, he sees me. We're on a collision course now, that is if neither of us deviates from our current path, and I would have been able to nicely head butt him through his open window, grating his nose like a block of cheese with my helmet but at the last moment we both take evasive action in different directions.

All far too 'exciting', even for me.

Stupid O'Clock

L gets up at stupid o'clock to get the 6.28 train down to London, Harley Street no less. The train was a mere snip at £131. You could have booked multiple flights around Europe on a no-frills airline for that sort of money.

The dogs escort her to the door but don't seem too bothered about going out for a walk, well at least not until its light and come back to bed. I can’t afford to be up much later though, as I'm the one on duty with them and if I want to bike into work, I’ll need to get a move on.

L texts to remind me that she always gives the dogs two biscuits after their morning walk. So I give them two biscuits as requested, one each. I’m trying to keep Doggo in trim for next weekend’s Crufts qualifier but I assume that’s what she meant anyway.

I enjoy a blustery cycle in and play a bit of ‘after you’ poker with a driver emerging from a side street. I prefer to let cars in wherever possible, as I like these four wheeled things in front of me where I can see what they’re up to, rather than them skulking behind like a petulant teenager.

In the end he forces me to go on ahead and then reaches the lights just as they turn to red. He pulls up at the cyclist's stop line, naturally. I pull up behind him at the car stop line, so I have to move forward when he winds his window down to whinge at me for making him miss the lights. I correct him, pointing out that if he hadn’t been so indecisive we’d have both made it. As he comes to a standstill in the next queue, I overtake him and give him a cheery wave as I pass. I'm sure I can feel his icy glare on my back.

Later, on my home, I see in the distance what appears to be a young mother holding her son’s hand and helping him across the road on his BMX bike. Bless. When I get closer I can see that they’re both actually teenagers of around the same age. His diddy bike though makes him seem half her height. Well it amused me.

No squash tonight, my opponent’s (sometimes) beloved Leeds United are in action in the League Cup against the mighty Liverpool... reserves. I’m only jealous. Cup matches... oh yes I remember them, very vaguely.

The 'It’s A Run Not A Race' Concept

MD’s tired after his plodding yesterday and he’s in his basket long before I even leave the house this morning. L says she would love to have been there herself. She’s bluffing because she’s already been for a loosener down the gym and then tonight she appears to be starting her sportive training. She plans to bike over to her parents’ place on the other side of Derby, where I will pick her up from, after dog training.

One of my work colleagues has entered the Kilomathon. This is fine, good even and I’m not worried about him. Problem is that protégé will now feel compelled to enter and racing him really won’t do me any good.

L bestows on me the wisdom that it’s a run not a race. Run, race... is there a difference? She’ll have to explain that one to me over a beer. I’m sure they’ll be awarding a first place prize, which in my book makes it a race.

I recently got a very odd email from an organisation called Green Squeeze urging me to take my knickers to Long Eaton Town Hall on Thursday 24th September at 7pm and present them to Erewash Borough Council. Actually, there’s nothing odd about Green Squeeze themselves, they are an independent campaign group formed to try to affect the plans for a new housing project on the former Stanton Iron Works site and the new road that will be built to service it.

The road is the main problem and the knickers idea is part of their ‘Pants to the Road’ initiative. Their slogan 'Knickers to the road, it's a pants idea'. It likely that the new road will cut an ugly swathe through the Erewash countryside near Risley, on land that is currently green belt. Not a pleasant thought, as it will permanently destroy a large chunk of the countryside and will most likely make the local traffic problems worse; it will also involve a new junction onto the already gridlocked A52.

There are however three other possible routing for the new access road, two of which are much more acceptable to the local community but predictably these are not ones that appear to be favoured by the council and the developers.



As promised L bikes to Derby but has an argument with her toe clips and spills a pint of blood across the road. I think this is an exaggeration but looking at her knee later, not by much.

Plodding

This morning, we are participating in something called the Ponton Plod. The start time is 8.30am which makes for an earlyish start for a Sunday and we head over to the wonderfully named Great Ponton, near Grantham. It’s not a race (apparently) and there are three routes of 27 miles, 17 miles and 11.5 miles, which you can walk or run, all on a mix of footpaths, bridleways, tracks and minor roads.

We opt to run the 17 mile route. As we line up at the start, both dogs are excited and predictably noisy. Doggo knows he’s about to get a run but I feel MD hasn’t a clue what’s about to happen but feels he ought to get excited anyway, just to not feel left out. We set out over a footbridge crossing the A1 and head out towards Stately Hall. As it’s early, the weather is still a little on the chilly side but it soon warms up and the sun shines all morning. Thankfully we’ve had a dry few weeks (rain wise, not alcohol wise) so the ground is firm too, none of that mud stuff. So the running is pretty easy and Lincolnshire is of course pancake flat.

Today the plan is to take it steady and enjoy the scenery. Of course, L would say that’s always her race plan. My other plan, more secret plan, is to eat as much of the complimentary food as possible. There are three checkpoints en route all with home-made refreshments. I think this the dogs’ plan as well. So we let the more serious runners go on ahead but leave the walkers for dust. Well eventually.

We have a sheet of directions to follow but the route is also helpfully signed with quite a few red markers pointing the way. It’s a great course although some of the stiles are not dog friendly ones and I end up lifting Doggo and MD over a lot of them. MD simply has to say hello to everyone, whether they be horses, sheep or aliens. We desperately try to gag him when we pass the cows.

It’s a longish trek, six miles to the first checkpoint, which when it arrives takes us a little by surprise as it seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. After a spot of refuelling, on millionaire's shortbread among other things, we push on.

Four miles later, we’re in the pleasant village of Harlaxton and the second checkpoint, complete with sandwiches and more cakes. Then we’re on our way again.

Just before the third and last checkpoint at Wyville we encounter... a hill. Hmmmm. Didn’t I say that Lincolnshire was pancake flat? Well apart from this bloody big hill obviously.

Then a few miles later it’s back over the A1 bridge and we’ve done. I lash the dogs to a nearby fence and after a glass or two of squash; I sit down with a cup of hot tea. Where’s L whilst I’m chilling like this you ask? Our chosen route was 17 miles but her marathon training schedule says 18 miles this weekend, so she’s gone for a jog down the road to make up the distance. Some people. When she gets back I’m more than ready for my hot soup and one of the huge portions of home-made apple pie.

A pleasant morning out and they raised £1200 for good causes.

There’s no one in at home when we get in, so we can wallow in a hot bath and poke each other’s aching calves, just for fun, in peace. There's ‘no one at home’ as regards the dogs either, all the lights are out there, as they sleep off the 17 miles.

In the evening we head over to Derby nice and early for a few beers before heading up to the reopened and refurbished Rockhouse. It’s my first time here since it reopened and I never went when it was called the Future either, so it’s been a long time, something like 15 years, since I was last here. It’s all totally different but pleasant enough and not the bomb site it used to be.

This was meant to be a headlining slot for Rob Jones aka the Voluntary Butler Scheme but he appears to have been bumped down the bill because local Derby band The Souvenirs have been parachuted in above him to headline, which is a shame. Poor ticket sales perhaps?

It occurs to me that this is not really the best venue for him. His quirky music is, after all, more music for your living room than for a rock club.

First though, we have a short set from a chap called Tom Campbell, a singer-songwriter from Derby. Who armed with just an acoustic guitar is excellent. It may be just him and his guitar but he makes a powerful sound with it as he dishes out a mix of Indied-up folk n blues.



Rob is still on in the advertised 9.30 slot but now, with the Souvenirs to follow, he’s on a deadline, so we’ll only get half an hour of him. Consequently the set is pretty much what we’ve heard him do before, which may be his best stuff but there’s now no room for him to experiment on us and dip deeper into his new record. He’s on ‘tour’ to promote his long promised and finally delivered debut album ‘At Breakfast, Dinner and Tea’. Although this amounts to pretty much a collection of all the stuff that he’s already had out. That said, it’s still very good and just as eccentric as expected.

Rob takes to the stage behind his vintage piano and old fashioned microphone, the rest of his multitude of musical instruments scattered about him. His is, of course, a one man show but we know we’ll still get the full band experience. This is indie pop for loners by a loner. Well perhaps not, but that’s often how he comes over. I’m never sure if his manner, shy and unassuming, is put on or not.

He gets busy building up the track that is the quirky love song ‘Multiplayer‘ but he still hasn't got that haircut he so fondly sings about. Jones puts the song together bit by bit. Adding guitar, keyboards, a drum beat etc to the track, then he samples his own voice for the backing vocals. Then job done he can sing and add other instruments over the top. It’s wonderfully low-tech but genius too and shows what a gifted chap he is. He’s either ahead of his time or years past it, it’s hard to tell. I’ve heard him likened to Arcade Fire, only with around ten less members and better lyrics. Well quaint nonsensical ones about everyday things. No gritty realism here, only songs about failing watch batteries.

So if he wants to be a super cool rock star, and not bumped down the bill by a local band, he’s got it all wrong. No band members to banter with, no cool name and no songs about sex, drugs and rock n roll. Unless you count lines like ‘if you were a broccoli I’d turn vegetarian for you’ and ‘if you bought running shoes, as breathless as I’d get, I’d buy running shoes too’, both from ‘Trading Things In’. Do we care about this uncoolness, not a bit. There are 50 people here tonight, which is about 40 more than we expected, all loving it, charmed and amused by his performance.

‘Like coffee and tea I need you regularly’ ah, the romance of it. I hope these heartfelt chat up lines work for him.

The songs may be daft but they’re quality too. He has an armoury of neglected singles, all full of clever riffs and catchy choruses. Well they were played twice on 6 Music he reckons. Such as the rocking ‘Tabasco Sole’ with another great lyric ‘wear a De La Soul t-shirt once in a while to make you feel more hop-hop than you are’, which naturally has since spawned its own t-shirt.

There’s also the added ‘excitement’ with his act that, as good as his shows are, you feel that things could fall apart at any moment but they never do.

He picks up a kazoo and a ukulele for ‘The Eiffel Tower and The BT Tower’. The kazoo makes it into the lyrics, where he rhymes it with ‘lasso’ as he sings explaining playing the songs of the Pet Shop Boys for a girl on such an instrument.

‘Split’ is played with the help, if that’s the right word, of a funny slidey thing that he puts on top of his microphone. No idea what you call that.

It’s all over far too soon; it’s all simply, well, charming and all for £3. Probably the first time in history that Seetickets have made a loss on their 10% booking fee. I imagine nothing would propel The Voluntary Butler Scheme into the mainstream and that actually is fine. So until the next time Rob.



We caught a bit of the Souvenirs on the bill at Joy Formidable back in June. I’d like to see more but we’re kind of tired after all our plodding and we had only come to see Rob, so we head for home. Walking out before the headliners. Well I never. So rock n roll.

Light Relief?

In many ways a typical Saturday. A few hours extra in bed, an hour or so on the park with the dogs and another defeat for the Rams.

So being in need of a bit of a light relief after the latter, it’s an odd choice to opt for a touch of gritty British social realism at the cinema. A fair few pints may have been more appropriate but we have to be sensible, in the interests of tomorrows run.

‘Fish Tank’ is one of those ‘kitchen sink’ dramas, a bit like the ones Shane Meadows or Mike Leigh like to make, complete with hand-held camera work. This one is set somewhere on the urban wasteland of a housing estate in Essex and is rather good, if you like the sort of gritty drama where everyone and everything is on a downward spiral.



Fifteen-year-old Mia (played with aplomb by a total newcomer Katie Jarvis) has been kicked out of school, we don’t know precisely why but we guess Mia is no good. This is drummed into us early on, in a blur of scenes around the estate. She’s your typical stroppy teenager but with added anger and extra lip. She’s a bit of a loner and seems to be purely biding her time until her mother packs her off into care. She spends her days drinking and practising dance moves in the empty flat upstairs, a flat that she’s broken into. She scowls at the other kids in the street, she thinks she’s better than them, both at life and at dancing. But is she?



The mother (Kierston Wareing), like her Daughter, often has a bottle in her hand. She has clearly failed Mia and herself, consequently there doesn’t seem to be much love between them and certainly no sign of any parenting. At times she seems less mature than her Daughter, as she trowels on the make-up, dons the bleach blonde look and goes in search of conquests down the local pub.

One such conquest, an Irish bit of charm called Connor (Michael Fassbender), wander out of her mother’s bedroom into their kitchen one morning and crosses swords with Mia. Mia puts the barriers up but there’s an immediate, if uneasy, magnetism between them, which is clearly going to lead to one thing. Like a lot of the film, you are unsurprised at what happens but all the same gripped by the journey there.



The film makes you wait for each outcome and tension builds every time Mia and Connor are on screen together. Mia visits him at work, asks his advice when she gets an audition at a dubious local club and spies on him in action in her mother’s bedroom. We don’t know where Mia’s father is in all this. Is Connor perhaps a similar ‘father figure’ that she couldn't help but be drawn to? Things are not always explained, this is not an A to B plot film.

Then one night all three of them are the worse for the alcohol and, with the mother conveniently crashed out, the inevitable happens. After which it all blows up and he returns to his real family. Yep, he has a wife and Daughter elsewhere. Mia follows him and what follows is an uneasy kidnap scene as she absconds with and nearly drowns (accidentally) his young daughter.



The film is fleshed out with a sub-plot about a local gipsy (Harry Treadaway) and his white horse, with whom Mia eventually runs off into the sunset. That’s the lad, not the horse. Although she tried that as well. Then there's her sister, the equally neglected, Tyler, who provides some light entertainment with some great lines.

I assume the title, ‘Fish Tank’, implies that we are looking in at their lives but it could equally apply to Mia, being on the inside, looking out, and longing for something different.

The characterisation is terrific, believable, and the acting equally so. The film is always interesting and edgy with it. Katie Jarvis turns in an excellent performances but all the cast are excellent.

We are walking back to the car afterwards when I see, reflected in a bus shelter, one of my old shirts. Must be Daughter then. Together with a friend, they have been to see ‘Dorian Gray’. What a cultured bunch we all are. We give them a lift home.

Dog or Chocolate Bar?

Before I even get to work I get a text from L saying she’s rescued a Yorkie. Dog or chocolate bar I ask? She doesn’t say. Wonder if that was from MD’s mouth? Still could be either dog or chocolate bar.

Turns out it was the dog variety. She stumbled across him down by the Uni lake on her morning constitutional with the boys. His owner appeared to be nowhere around and it looked like he had just come back from one of Son’s parties only perhaps without the WKD. You know, matted fur and looking he'd spent the night sleeping rough.

So much to the chagrin of our dogs, L decided that a girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do, scooped him up and carried him home. Good job it wasn't a Rottie. Once home she managed to contact the owners via it’s very well worn dog tag and found out that yes he had been out on the tiles all night. Probably been down the Arb, playing football with cans of Strongbow for goalposts.

So for a while we had three dogs. Which is a worry because L admits she would have kept it. It would have been the same scenario for both dog and chocolate bar but of course a dog's for life not just for elevenses.

It's my first bike of the week today and it’s goes well despite my legs still being stiff from my run, which was as long ago as Tuesday. It's good to be back on the bike because I’ve spent far too long in the car recently and not enough time on the two wheels. Although one advantage of this is that I have managed to catch up on some ‘reading’. A few weeks ago L gave me a new audio book, ‘The Road Home’ by Rose Tremain. I was sceptical, as always, but it turned out to be really good and I got through it in no time. So here’s a brief book review.

It’s the tale of Lev, a migrant who arrives from Eastern European but he does so legally because his country has joined the EU. Once here he tries to make a life for himself in London and to make some money to send home to his unappreciative elderly Mother and his young Daughter. Lev’s wife died young from cancer, a situation that continually haunts him.

At first all he can get is a job delivering leaflets for £5 a day and he has to sleep rough at night. Then though, he gets lucky. He lands a job in a kitchen, at first doing the washing up and cleaning but then later as the vegetable chef.

It’s not so much the story that’s good because the plot is of slightly dubious believability; everything just seemed to fall right for Lev a little too often. It’s the array of colourful and interesting characters that he meets along the way that makes it so good.

There’s Lydia, his unintended companion on the bus journey to England. She clearly fancies him and often has to bail him out of situations until he pushes her too far on that score. His job in the kitchen enables him to find some lodgings at the house of an Irish chap called Christy. He’s a bit of an alcoholic, who’s estranged from his wife and Daughter but later he remarries to an Indian woman. Lev buys himself a mobile phone so that he can keep in touch with his best friend back home, the volatile Rudi, who works as a taxi in this temperamental second-hand American Chevy.

There are other great characters in Lev's kitchen, among them his flamboyant ‘chef’ G.K. Ashe, a hard man to work for but one who develops a soft spot for Lev. We also meet the oddball selection of residents at the nursing home Lev visits on Sundays and eventually cooks for. Once things go a bit awry in London, he decamps to the countryside to work for another larger than life character Midge, the Suffolk farmer, who hires him as a picker.

Then there’s the reason things go awry in London, Sophie, a chef in G.K. Ashe's kitchen. Lev, who despite being my sort of age has no problem pulling the younger women and he falls for Sophie big time. She lifts his life out of its state of tedium and makes everything worth living for, for a while. He adores her plump arms and Lenny the lizard tattoo. He even puts up with her liking for rough sex, well you would wouldn’t you. Suddenly he's forgotten the haunting memories of his dead wife. He becomes totally obsessed with her. Ultimately though, he does not have the social status she craves and when they fall out, he loses his job and ends up working the fields in Suffolk. Now all his haunting memories are of Sophie.

Eventually he realises what he wants to do, particularly now that he has found out that his old village is to be destroyed to build a new dam. He returns to London, holds down two jobs at once and raises enough money to take the road home and realise those dreams.

A highly recommended read (or listen).



The old legs still ache but seem to be returning to life a bit as I ride home. Perhaps after a quick rub down they’ll be up for the long walk to the Victoria. We don’t have much choice though, I’m not sure we’d get MD into our local after last time and the altercation with the greyhound.

We had pondered going down to Scruffys for their reopening night but Friday is known as the dogs' night out, so we’ll defer our trip there. Scruffys was once one of our favourite haunts, until it went upmarket, became totally un-scruffy and then closed. It’s good to have it back, I hope, we haven’t seen the refit yet.

Impending Doom

I drive out through Wollaton this morning and the main entrance to the park is locked causing confusion for people on their way to work and for dog walkers. They’re closed for ‘refurbishment’. This is code for the annual deer cull that always happens in September. They had a lot of protesters one year and now have to pretend their 'refurbishing'. Amazingly this actually fools the animal rights people.

So you thought your internet connection was slow did you? In South Africa it’s faster to send your data by carrier pigeon. An IT company in Durban attempted to prove this by pitting Winston the pigeon, armed with a 4GB memory stick, against the ADSL service from the country's biggest web firm. Winston took two hours to carry the data 60 miles, in which time the same time the ADSL had sent 4% of the data. Not sure that would be terribly practical here in Derby but I might mention it next time we come to an internet standstill.



Daughter has an interview today and she heads off for it in fluffy boots and a low cut t-shirt. If she gets interviewed by a man with a fantasy, she'll be in, for the job that is.

Later on my way back from training I almost flatten a cyclist. Bloody cyclists. I was on the busy A6 and turning right at a junction. I was in the filter lane, indicating right and there was no traffic coming. Then when I was half way across, I had to suddenly slam on the brakes as my headlights picked out a cyclist. It was pitch black, yet here was a lad on a MTB, no lights, no helmet, no reflective clothing, headphones on, assuming I’d seen him. If I’d have been there on a bike with no lights, not that I would, I would have stopped and let the car pass but he just pedalled across oblivious to his impending doom. He was a very lucky chap; a lot of motorists wouldn’t even have slowed down for that junction, lucky for him I did.

Like Royalty

My legs are a bit stiff after yesterday’s two-thirds of Kilomathon as I drive out to Stoke for Stage 5 of The Tour Of Britain. Thankfully I’m not riding in it but then of course I can boast that I already have, having cycled the route last week.

I head to hospitality for breakfast. Traditional Staffordshire Oatcakes they call them, filled with cheese and bacon. Not sure they’re terribly traditional but they’re very welcome.

I meet up with my host, the girl who’s telephone number L bunged me and she arranges for me to see the race from one of the press cars, which I share with a couple of journos. Seeing the freelance journalists do their work is actually more interesting than the race. Cycle races are often not that exciting, they’re a bit like chess matches and you have to wait for the exciting bits that eventually emerge from all the tactical manoeuvrings.

It’s also interesting watching the slick police operation as motorcycle riders close the roads ahead of the race and to listen to ‘tour radio’ and hear all the organising going on.

The press cars have to stay in front of the main pack, so for the first 30km or so we don’t actually see anything as we drive along, a minute or so ahead of the race but still all the assembled crowds wave at us, which is kind of like being royalty.

Then four riders escape from the main bunch and we get to drop into the gap between them and the main field.



Now we can ride directly behind them as one rider tries to make contact, and eventually does, with other three. Inevitably, although at one stage they had a lead of six minutes, the pack reels them in. This means we have to go back in front, squeezing past the leaders as we do so, which must have made them feel as if they were on the commute to work.



Our driver then puts his foot down to get us to the finish in plenty of time to see the race arrive.

Once there we head straight into hospitality again and a good view of the finish line. My wrist is now adorned with two wristbands, Daughter will be so jealous, that’s one up on her, she’s still wearing the one from the Leeds Festival.



For the third day in a row the winner is Norway's Edvald Boasson Hagen.



I bet the poor chap gets sick of being snogged by those girls or perhaps not.

Unfortunately I miss lunch as they’re already packing up hospitality to ship it down to the South-West for tomorrow’s stage. So I pop into a garage for a sandwich where I fall out with the sales assistant! It’s £2.69 for a sandwich or £3 for the meal deal including crisps and a drink. I don’t want one of their sugary drinks or a bottle of water so I just go for the crisps and she tries to charge me £3.49. I have to have the drink to get it for £3. How stupid is that? The woman scans a drink and the price comes down to £3. I offer to put it back on the shelf. Can’t do that she says, it will mess up the stock figures. I ask if it’s ok if I throw it in the bin, she shrugs. In the end, I take it home for Daughter.

Later after dog training, I get home and L is entering the blessed Kilomathon. Oh what the hell, why not.

Time To Think Up Excuses

I run into work from my parents' house which is around 9k and the wind was against me all the way. So I’m knackered after that and I’ve only ran about a third of a Kilomathon or whatever that new race is called. The Kilomathon is the world's first-ever 26.2 kilometre race, not that that means much, it’s just that no one had thought of running such a daft and meaningless distance before. If that was all there was to it, I wouldn’t have given it a second thought. However as it is a run starting in Nottingham and ending in Derby, e.g. my compute, it has taken on ‘must do’ status. Not that I’ve ever raced over such a distance before. Thankfully it’s not until March, so I have plenty of time to train or to think up some good excuses.

Entries have just opened and they reckon they’re expecting around 7,000 people to sign up for it. L is keen, in fact she’s far keener than me. She’s has already been nagging me to enter. I can see she’s itching to be the first entry and have that number 1 on her chest.

Today she’s been out on her bike. So perhaps she’s serious about the ‘Circuit Of The Cotswolds’ too. Come to think of it, she was asking me about cadence the other day... it's a slippery slope.

After work I run the same distance back to my parents' place. Totally wrecked now and still only two-thirds of a way to a Kilomathon.

At the match, Derby switch from the boring defensive 4-5-1 of their last game to an exciting attacking formation of 4-4-1-1... I’m all excited now. No, not really.

It's a more determined performance from Derby but with the same result. Nigel Clough keeps saying we keep throwing these games away by shooting ourselves in the foot but he obviously hasn’t been watching closely enough. This team aren’t capable of shooting themselves in the foot, they’d miss.

I should have played squash as normal but then the result would have been the same in that as well.

A New Challenge?

At work, my colleagues are more impressed by L’s swim than by my ride cycle last week. Not that I’m bitter. I mean, I probably couldn’t have done it.

Now she needs to think up another challenge otherwise her motivation will fall off a cliff. She has the Beachy Head Marathon coming up in October but after that is a big black hole.

So I wasn’t surprised she was looking for a new challenge but what she came up with stunned me. It also means I might have to give back the part of her bike computer that I nicked to get mine working. I thought I was safe to ‘borrow’ it because she doesn’t use her bike much but now she’s talking about doing a sportive. She’s looking at the 100 mile Circuit Of The Cotswolds.

It’s all the fault of Spandau Ballet or Spandau Belly as the media have started called lead singer Tony Hadley.

She says the photographs of Mr’s Hadley and Kemp in the Daily Mail, ahead of their reunion tour, make her want to give up running (Hadley's pursuit) and take up cycling (Kemp's pursuit) instead.

I read an interview with Gary Kemp recently in Cycling Weekly, he’s very keen and has splashed out on a £2000 carbon bike... sounds familiar. Wonder if he did it on Cyclescheme, although you’d expect him to pay cash but then if he was that well off I’m surprised he only spent £2000. In the photo in the Mail he’s also in Rapha Condor kit, they’re the b******* I couldn’t keep up with on the Pro Tour Ride.

I go dog training with the intention of training MD but someone puts up such a stinker of a course that I have to run Doggo around it, so that the old man can prove he can still hack it. Which he does, then I get youngster out, who then gives me a good workout.

Praying For Rain

The local church clock chimes four times but I’m not sure if that awoke me or whether it was another session of nocturnal machinations from our neighbours. Whatever, the women next door cuts things short by telling someone to ‘get out’ and to ‘mind their elbows’, which may have been one of her dogs or her husband, who knows but it all goes quiet and I roll over to look at L, who tonight is wide awake and looking straight back at me.

L seems fine after her stint in the murky waters of Windermere yesterday, no aches, no side effects and no outbreaks of algae. We bump into a guy at the breakfast van who is swimming today, in less than 90 minutes. He’s munching on his bacon cob and musing when to leave. Err, in view of the park and walk system, I’d say at least half an hour ago. It would be interesting to know if he made it.

The weather is glorious again, ideal for fell walking but we know that if we do that we’ll probably nod off on the M6 so we go and watch some more of the swimming instead. Then we have Sunday lunch before heading home.

Once home, we do a damage assessment. Son takes us outside and points up to the roof. OMG, now I’m worried. Has somebody reproduced the semi-pornographic path etchings of last time on our roof? Thankfully not. Son points to a trail of vomit up there. It’s dark so I can’t really see if they’ve tried to write their name or something worse. I’m not sure if he’s pointing this out apologetically or proudly. We go back inside, to pray for rain.

A Dip In The Lake

I love camping, the great outdoors, being under the stars, falling asleep listening to the noises in the valley or being awakened in the middle of the night by them. This is often entertaining because people forget that a tent is not a house and that everything they say and do inside can be heard by other folk nearby. L sleeps through this nocturnal entertainment and she’s gutted to have missed it when I tell her in the morning.

It’s gloriously hot today, which is odd, this being the Lake District, where the rain is usually wetter and more persistent than the rubbish we get in the Midlands. It’s a great day to be out on the fells or even to swim across Windermere, which is what L is doing today. Although not until 2:30 in the afternoon, so we have a leisurely morning and discover to our delight that the campsite has its own breakfast van. Very welcome.

Then we head over to the swim. There is no parking at the event but there is an option to ‘park and sail’, a variation on ‘park and ride’, but I’m not too sure how the dogs would cope with that. It is also based on the South side of Ambleside at Bowness, so is of little use to us stationed to the north. So we park and walk from Ambleside to the event’s start and finishing point at the Low Wood Hotel.

We get there in time to see the two elite races where British swimmer Tom Allen takes bronze in an eye watering time of 16:26 and GB junior Katy Whitfield takes silver in 18:15.

Double Olympic champion Rebecca Adlington is present to help start the races but doesn’t get her feet wet unlike the GB team mate she beat in Beijing, Jo Jackson, who competed in the elite race and finished eighth.



Then it’s time for L to don her wetsuit in readiness for her dip in England’s largest lake. Apparently 6,000 participants, in waves of around 200 a time, will swim the one-mile loop within the lake today and tomorrow. To add to the pressure elite swimmers Olympic 10k Silver medallist, Keri-Anne Payne, fourth in the women’s and Ross Davenport fifth in the men’s opt to go again in L’s wave, swimming with their friends and family.

There’s also the self-styled nutter, sorry adventurer, Sky Sports journalist Julian Crabtree who is swimming in every wave of all four Great Swim events across the UK. With the waves going off every half-an-hour, he can’t afford to take his time.

There are many celebrities participating and also to his credit the Health Secretary Andy Burnham, a minister practising what he preaches for once. L is more worried about Irish runner Sonia O'Sullivan, who she’s raced against before, on foot, and got slaughtered obviously. I’ve no idea how good Sonia is at swimming.

It might be hot today but the water temperature is a chilly 16.3C. Despite this some participants opt to brave it in standard swim suits and one or two of them don’t make it all the way and are pulled out by the rescue boats.

L does 43 minutes which is very impressive, comfortably mid-table, and she didn’t have to cling to any of the boats, like I would have done. Some swimmers took over 80 minutes. Ross Davenport comes in ahead of L but she beats Keri-Anne Payne, who no disrespect to L’s fabulous achievement must have been taking it considerably easier than in the elite race when she clocked just over 18 minutes.



Afterwards we retire to a local watering hole for a pint and a sandwich, and then back to the campsite for more of the same. The beer is better tonight; we track down the Old Peculiar although it has to watered down with Cumberland Ale for the sake of tomorrows hangover.

We meet a couple who are looking to move from their terrific Langdale Valley bolt hole and move to Uttoxeter to be near their Grandchildren. L and I both look incredulous. They were nice enough to offer us their house, if we can raise the £550,000. Yeah right.

The Omens Aren’t Looking Good

L says she’s fighting fit and she’s run into work this morning to prove it. She’s not died, so she thinks she'll be ok for her big swim tomorrow. I’m still vaguely pencilled in as on the subs bench just in case but fingers crossed I won’t be needed.

I have the afternoon off work so that we can make an early start for the Lakes, just in case our treasured Langdale campsite has been hijacked by hoards of swimmers. The early start doesn’t gain us much, some of those infamous M6 road works slow us down to crawl. The resulting tail back is allegedly eight miles but as it spans at least the whole of the stretch between Junctions 32 and 33, a stretch of around 22 miles, that is a slight underestimate.

So we’re at least an hour later that planned and as we arrive at the campsite they have the ‘site full’ sign up. Surely not? In fact, it isn’t full but they have broken water pipes and are running the site at a fraction of capacity. We resolve ourselves to going back down the road to Chapel Stile to rough it at Baysbrown campsite. Last time we considered it, the site didn’t have much in the way of home comforts. This time though, apart from it being packed, it has a almost brand new set of facilities, hot water, free showers, the lot. Result.

We rush to the local pub for some food. Snecklifter is on the bar, so things are picking up even if it is four deep at the bar. The bar is terribly understaffed and the kitchen incapable of coping with the amount of food orders going through. The food service stops early before we can get in the queue and then the Snecklifter runs dry. L is all for going home. She says this is a sign and the omens aren’t looking good, she’ll drown and the house, by now full once again with partying hormonally challenged teenagers, will burn down. I consider mentioning that the state of the house would hardly matter to her if she drowned, but I don’t. Then there's the M6, anything is preferably to facing the M6 again so soon.

Fit As A Fiddle

Today L announces that she's as fit as a fiddle. Damn. I was 'almost' looking forward to that swim. Her declaration of fitness though isn’t terribly convincing, her fiddle may be missing a string or two.

The local villages of Long Eaton, Sawley and Breaston have been plagued by an unpleasant smell for more than two months which has now finally been cleared up. The smell was apparently waste from the manufacture of Marmite that was being disposed of around there. They should have advertised the fact, would have done wonders for the local tourist trade, Marmite lovers would have been round in their droves for a sniff. L will be gutted she missed it.



I’m at dog class (again) in the evening when a friend texts me to tell me he’s watching the women’s football. England are playing in the final of the European Championships. It’s their first final for 25 years and an achievement the men's side haven’t managed for even longer.

Not that he’s enjoying it; he doesn’t like women’s sport and particularly women’s football, which isn’t an opinion I share. It’s a while before he evens tells me what the score is.

Women’s football is a lot better than it was, skill levels are high now and the women are now no longer all built like a brick s*** houses. Our lot are quite an attractive bunch, although looking at some of the opposition... perhaps that’s still the way to go.

The opposition are the Germans, who of course nearly always beat us at football and their women’s team have won six of the last seven Championships including the last four. So it was perhaps no surprise that we lost. In touch at 3-2 down early in the second half it finished an unflattering 6-2. Oh well.



Last year our men reached the final of the European Under-21 Championship and also lost in the final by four goals to... Germany. Sounds like a nasty precedent for the World Cup.

I Might Have To Step In

A flu-filled L drags herself to the gym and manages to survive the experience. If L is unfit to swim on Saturday I might have to don the wetsuit and step in. Yikes. I also manage not to die this morning, in a much more life threatening pursuit, cycling to work.

I think perhaps I may have kick-started a bit of fitness madness at work. My fellow cyclists haven’t really been pulling their weight recently. However this week, one colleague has now cycled three days in a row despite complaining of a bad back. He’s had to take to spending his lunchtimes lying on the floor plugged into his ipod to ease the pain but I think he’s enjoying being back on the bike.

Another colleague has been cycling between work and his new girlfriend's house every day, which is greater distance than his usual commute. On top of this he’s been running in the evenings and the early mornings. His new girlfriend will be wondering why he keeps coming round, if he hasn’t got any energy left for her.

The Government will be pleased though with the resultant increase in cycle journeys, and I can give them some even better news. Governments love statistics, because you can say anything with statistics. So here’s one for them, done by own very unscientific research. The number of girls doing the Derby to Nottingham commute on their bikes is up 100%. Wow.

Well actually, a massive increase is it not. As I surveyed, at great inconvenience to myself, the number of Lycra clad lovelies astride their racing bikes today the final total came to four, when it's usually only two. They’ve all obviously believed the hype, that according to BBC, women with big strong thighs don’t get heart disease and we're all the better off for it.

After a trip to the pool, its dog class where someone has a new puppy, which is related to Doggo. His elder brother is the father. He's sired no end of puppies, obviously a bit of a ‘Jack the dog’, unlike Doggo. MD on the other hand...

Daughter Flu

I ring the girl whose mobile phone number L gave me. Unfortunately, sorry I mean luckily, the girl’s not the prize. The prize is a hospitality place and a ride in the lead car at the Tour Of Britain cycle race. I get to go in the hospitality tent at both the start and the finish. Therefore getting the best view of both and the presentation plus a free breakfast, lunch, tea/coffee on tap and a free bar.

Thing is I’d agreed to marshal, can’t do both, I will have to send them my apologies. I’m not as keen on the race car bit but girl’s can be persuasive (or should that be pushy), so I’ve agreed. Might be good but it could be anything up to four hours in the car and I could drive to the Lakes in that time, the western Lakes at that. In a way I’d rather go round the course again on my bike but I feel I might be out of my depth.

Pilates tonight, sorry I mean squash. You can tell we’ve given up on tennis by the sudden change in the weather. Those long summer evenings spent staring out of the window at the rain have been replaced by something called sunshine.

All the same, we mustn’t get our times wrong in case we get mixed up with the class that follows us. My opponent threatens to turn up in spandex. Thankfully he doesn’t but the leotard is a bit unnecessary.

Pilates in a squash court, I ask you. L pulled me on my use of the word ’Pilates’, she pedantically pointed out that Pilates has a capital ‘P’ after Joseph Hubertus Pilates. The spell checker did keep telling me about the capitalisation but I kept ignoring it. Why should Pilates have a capital when the more superior pastime of squash doesn’t... hmmm. My apologies to Mr Squash, should he exist.

L's lying on the bed when I get home but not seductively. She’s been struck down with the lurgy. I'm probably next, despite L’s kissing ban which I see the French authorities have now copied because of the rise in cases of swine flu over there. This isn’t swine flu though, this is Daughter flu and it’s still virulent, I can hear the accused coughing in the front room.

I leave L to suffer in peace, well apart from the generous whiskey and the two collie shaped hot water bottles beside her.

Is This A Trap?

My legs are not too bad after yesterdays 145km. My knees though are a different story and stairs today are hell.

The immediate reaction at work is muted, they kind of expect this sort of irrational behaviour from me, and I’m at first upstaged by someone who has finally cracked snowboarding by spending a whole day at Tamworth Snowdome on a course. Something I would like to crack myself but then again they say once you cross over to the dark side of snowboarding you never come back and I do like my skiing and blading.

Then someone says 'Did you say you did ninety miles?'. I think it's just dawned on them and I belatedly get the reverence I feel I deserve.

The evening sees the restarting of Doggo’s Monday night class. As usual I take MD in for a look around first, just to soften up the opposition, before Doggo takes the floor.

I get home and L hands me a piece of paper with a girl's name and a mobile phone number on it. That’s never happened before. It’s not even my birthday. Is this a trap?

Apparently not. I’ve won a prize and I’m someone who never wins anything, neither by skill or by chance. Well ok there's been the odd prize on the tombola or a spot prize in a race but this really is a first.

Apparently I have won something for being the 1000th rider to sign-up to yesterday’s Pro Tour ride. Wow.

A Day Out In Staffordshire

5.30 alarm. We kick Daughter’s friend out the house, who has stopped over, we’re all charm at our place. Then I drop L and Daughter in town so that they can catch their coach up to Sheffield for the 10k up there whilst I drive over to Stoke for the Pro Tour Ride and a little matter of 145km in the saddle. The event is a full stage (stage 5) of the Tour of Britain cycle race which starts next week. I couldn’t resist this one, being a unique chance to ride over the same terrain as the professionals will do. If we’re being picky, it’s not exactly the same route, there are a few places where we will be diverted on to more minor roads than the race will use and the race will finish back where it starts at the Stoke City’s Britannia Stadium rather than in Hanley. The upshot of that, is that we will do 145km, whereas the Pros only do 134km, slackers.

I pull into the event car park nice and early. There aren’t many here yet, only about ten cars, for saying that 1,200 cyclists are supposed to be riding the event. I don’t want to be one of the first to set off, so I take awhile getting my kit together and then go off in pursuit of some breakfast. Once at the stadium I find that a lot of people are already waiting at the stadium, obviously having parked elsewhere or perhaps more likely biked there.

Breakfast consists of malt loaf, which isn’t bad, and all you can eat in Mule bars, which are disgusting, all swilled down with Lucozade Sport. Personally I’d have preferred a mug of tea.

As it approaches the start time of 8am, it’s still quite chilly; everybody is going for the full body cover except me. I haven’t really brought any warm cycling clothes; I’m sure it’ll warm up. It had better.

I join the queue to start, they are setting us off in groups of forty every four minutes from beneath the official gantry. It takes around twenty minutes for me to get to the front of the queue and then we’re off.



It’s good to see that the group stays together as we thread our way out of Stoke and past Trentham Gardens. It’s great to ride with so many people, making you feel as though you’re really in the peloton. At first the pace is moderate enough for most people to stay with but as we head off into the countryside, the pace is gradually cranked up and people drop off the back. I battle to stay in touch, knowing that once this group is gone they’ll never be one as big as this again. I stay with the pace until there are about fifteen of us left and then I too get dropped. What did it for me is that I only started free-wheeling so that I could grab a swig from my drinks bottle. In the fifteen or so seconds it took me to do that a gap had opened that I had no hope of closing and they were gone.

Never mind, a few minutes later the leaders of the next group of forty swept me up. They were obviously travelling even faster than my group as I could still see mine in the distance and I’m sure this lot will catch them, and soon. I tagged onto the back of them, for... oooh minutes before I got tailed off again.

I pulled into the first checkpoint at Eccleshall, 21km in. I’m feeling a tad knackered after going off too fast with the group and I’m not sure how I’m going to manage to pedal another 124km! I munch on another slice or three of malt load and down one of the energy gels that I had brought with me.

Then we head we head off east towards Stone. I have an unplanned stop at Milwich (41km) which is actually a stop on the shorter 70km route and not on my itinerary but they have sandwiches and hot tea so I stop anyway. Anything to avoid more malt loaf.

Past Uttoxeter and another checkpoint at Stramshall, which doesn’t have sandwiches so it’s a good job I stopped at the last one. I’m only 58km in but L texts to say she's already finished the Sheffield 10k. I text back my congratulations on her performance and excellent time.

Then I push on. It’s been easy so far but from here they say the route becomes more challenging as they take us up onto the Staffordshire Moorlands, by the time we finish we will have climbed a total of over 2000 metres. The first official hill is the 2nd category climb of Wootton Hill at 75km but it doesn’t pose much of a problem, I’ve trained on worse.

I’m in a small group and we keep getting passed by the men in black, the Rapha Condor cycling team, who will be racing on the course for real next week. I assume they’re on a reconnaissance mission. I can’t live with them, at least when they’re moving but they keep stopping for a chat to each other and I keep getting back in front for while, until they wizz past again. One of them is sporting the colours of the National Road Race Champion, so he’s either pretending to be, or is National Champion Kristian House, who recently defeated all the UK’s household names to take the title. If he slows down a touch I’ll offer him a few tips.



It’s a long stretch to the next checkpoint at Tittesworth Reservoir, 95km done. So 50km to go via a big hill called Gun Hill, a 1st category climb. My kit selection has proved correct and now the sun is quite strong and I get my shades out my bag, as I continue to overdose on Lucozade Sport.

So to the long steep climb of Gun Hill. Some folks resort to walking up it but not me. I didn’t think it was too difficult, nowhere near as tough as some of the climbs I did on the White Rose challenge, an event which has obviously prepared me well.

I'm really enjoying myself now as we head through hilly Leek, cheered on by quite a few spectators who have turned up to support. They reckoned Gun Hill was the main ‘treat’ of the day but some of the hills around here proved troublesome too for people with tired legs. They threw the 3rd category climb of Cheddleton Hill at me but I had my nose set for home now and I laughed in the face of it. There was simply no way I resorting to walking up any of them.

Some people were clearly struggling. I passed a few hobbling at the side of the road and I asked if they needed assistance. The usual response was that they had cramp in both legs. Nasty. There were continually motorcycle outriders going up and down the groups of cyclists and they soon went to their assistance. They’d also help you fix your bike as well, if that was necessary. Most of the checkpoints also had mechanics and first aid at them as well.

For the last 30km I go for it and tug another chap along with me, who claims he hasn’t got the legs left to help out with the pace. We’re passing everybody now. I even pedal up most of the remaining hills on the big ring, although it wasn't possible on the big one near the end.

There’s a drinks stop at Godleybrook (117km) and I think about not stopping but in the end I do, just for a quickie.

Then I can see the Britannia Stadium in the distance, one final effort and I power across the line. Finished. Doddle. Six hours and thirty four minutes but what I’m more pleased with is that my bike computer tells me that my time on the bike was only five hours thirty-two at an average of 16.5 mph. Pleased with that. I just need to remember how to walk now and then find out if I can still drive.

I head home to an almost as smug, but not quite, L and we congratulate each other.

Later down the pub a greyhound attacks MD and gets him around the throat which finishes the day off in an unhappy way. The owner had to choke his dog to get him to let go of MD. Thankfully no physical harm done, luckily the dog must have had very blunted teeth.

History, 'Romance' And A Séance

This weekend’s dog show has been cancelled; the showground at Bakewell is flooded apparently. Instead this gives me an unexpected chance to go to the open day at Derby’s Roundhouse. The Grade II-listed Roundhouse has always been a major landmark on the Derby skyline, built in 1839, it has been restored over the last two years and now Derby College are poised to open it as a new engineering and technology campus for around 3,000 students

Locomotives were originally taken there to be mended and rotated on the turntable, but for the last 20 years it has lay derelict and decaying.



I love seeing a bit of history and the restoration work they have done is quite simply stunning. It just shows what can be done when people take the time (yeah ok and the money) to restore historic buildings.

As well as the Roundhouse building itself, other buildings have been restored too including the engine workshop and the impressive clock tower, all with the approval of English Heritage. There have also been some new buildings added in a modern style but these blend and contrast well with the old. It was extremely interesting to learn all the history as we were shown around by Vice Principal Steve Logan.



The Roundhouse will not just be available to students and will be open to the public from the end of October.

After that first cultural experience of the day, I meet up with L at Broadway for another. Something called ‘(500) Days Of Summer’. Which I’m sure is just another Rom-com in an ill fitting disguise. Even L admits that although the trailers claim ‘this is not a love story’, it probably is. It's apparently a story of ‘Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love. Girl doesn't.’ They never made a film about that when it happened to me; on any of the numerous occasions.

Tom Hansen (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) has failed in his attempts to become an architect and instead works for a greeting card company, writing those awful inside bits of romantic propaganda. He is looking back, not so fondly, over the 500 days that he knew a girl called Summer Finn (Zooey Deschanel), the ‘summer’ of the title.

Each scene is introduced by a caption saying which of the 500 days it relates to but this is not done in order. In fact we start at the end and then flit back and forth. Which means the plot is dispensed with immediately by telling you how it all ends.

From the moment Summer walked into his office as the new admin girl, he apparently knew she was ‘the one’ he was going to spend the rest of his life with. This immediately makes him very different from most men. A unique sort of guy, one who craves commitment. Girls do the ‘love at first sight’ sort of thing, boys don’t. Girls fall instantly in love; boys fall instantly in lust and then kind of get their head around the ‘love’ thing later. This, I think, is the whole point of the film, which promised a reversal of the normal male-female roles but I just don’t think it worked.



Tom plays it cool and she makes all the running, being chatty in the lift when she finds out he is a Smiths fan. Then at a company karaoke evening, a colleague lets slip Tom's feelings for her but he misses this golden opportunity and it is left to Summer again to make the running, as she snogs him at the photocopier the next day.

Summer makes it clear that she isn't looking for anything serious, doesn't want a relationship and just wants to be friends. If a guy was doing this, he wouldn’t admit it, it would harm his chances. Then she pursues him anyway. They go out and when he takes her back to his place, he has to extract himself from their clinch on the bed to go to the bathroom, seemingly needing time to think through this ‘just friends, we’re not having a relationship’ thing, not understanding at all why ‘his friend’ is seducing him on his bed. Is that how a girl would react? Maybe, but you just want to shout at him to stop over analysing and just go with the flow. When he returns she is naked. Of course this is most guys’ fantasy, an attractive female friend with ‘benefits’.



Summer is the sort of girl who will watch a porn movie with her man, say 'that looks achievable' before trying it out in the shower. Most men would kill for a girl like that. The film is ninety minutes of Summer jumping into bed with him, all the while being totally upfront about not wanting a relationship. So just what was his problem? Whether he believes her or not, get out or enjoy the ride. Every boy knows a girl like Summer, who they want but can't have. Yet he got the gig, most of us don’t.

He skips out of the apartment the next morning, cue cheesy dance number to a bit of ‘Hall and Oates’. ‘Hall and Oates’ apart, the soundtrack is probably one of the best things about the film, featuring songs from the Pixies, the Doves, Black Lips, Regina Spektor, Temper Trap (L’s current fave song) and of course the Smiths.

They develop a typical office relationship, spend a lot of time together, have a lot of fun and seemingly grow closer and closer. Which if it’s supposed to be a film about the reversal of the bad boy-good girl roles is wrong. She’s just not malicious at all. She needs to treat him like dirt, not call him, use him like an unscrupulous guy would and perhaps even try to get off with his friends. It’s not brash or bold enough in that way. In fact the film gives us the impression that Summer very obviously does like Tom and the attraction between them comes over as very real. They become more than just friends. She doesn't want to label things but he thinks that they're in a relationship because, well they are. It's a film about an argument about terminology and it becomes just another boy meets girl story. If this was supposed to turns the genre on its head, then once it had done so, it toppled back over and fell on its back.



Later after she dumps him following a realisation that comes after she interpreted the ending of the ‘The Graduate’ as sad and he didn’t, they meet up again at a colleagues wedding and she catches the bouquet, signifying that she is next. Yet when she invites him to a party at her place, Tom finds out that it is not to be with him. The girl who didn't want to be anyone's girlfriend is now engaged to someone else.

The film had potential and a clever idea but never got there, at least not for me. Part of it was role-reversal and part of it wasn’t, which just left me confused and frustrated with both of them. It offered a few good lines and a few clever scenes but not enough and far too many clichés. I daren’t mentioned the precocious younger sister or his seemingly pointless friends which helped to drag it down.

We don’t even get an unhappy ending. The film ends with Tom at a job interview as he returns to architecture. His rival for the job, a girl, claims to recognise him from a local bar. They agree to meet for a coffee afterwards. Her name is Autumn. Oh dear. So now it’s Day 1 of Autumn. This will be an interesting start to a new relationship knowing one of them beat the other to the job. I wonder if they had to subtitle that for the American audience to explain what Autumn was.

Moving swiftly on.

‘Summer’ was this afternoon, this evening is more culture, at the Playhouse. We have cheapo £5 tickets for ‘Blithe Spirit’, a comedy play written by Noel Coward and first performed in 1941.

Charles is a novelist who wishes to research the occult for a new novel. So he invites a couple of friends round and then along with his wife and a local bicycling medium called Madame Arcati they hold a séance. Madame Arcati approach is shambolic and the séance is a disaster. She leaves for home not realising that she has achieved a success of sorts and has inadvertently summoned Charles's first wife, Elvira, who has been dead for seven years. Only Charles can see or hear Elvira, and his second wife, Ruth, obviously does not believe him when he tells her what has happened. This enables some comic misunderstandings to play out as Charles talks to both at once but Ruth can only hear his side of the conversation.

She is finally convinced of Elvira’s presence when her ghost starts carrying objects around their living room.

Elvira then sabotages Charles’s car in the hope that he might join her in the afterlife but instead she kills Ruth. Charles cannot at first see Ruth but Elvira can. He calls Madame Arcati again to exorcise both of the spirits but she messes it up again and summons Ruth instead. So now Charles has two visible and bickering ghosts to deal with.

Madame Arcati tries, again and again, to exorcise the both of them until finally she succeeds. Even then she advises him to go far away and as soon as possible. Charles does, leaving the ghosts to wreak havoc and destroy the house.



It’s all very well done, well acted and another triumph for the Playhouse and all for a fiver.